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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 8, 2014Lee WestwoodPONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA DOUG MILNE: Lee Westwood, thanks for joining us for a few minutes after a successful 5‑under bogey‑free 67 today, making your 12th start in THE PLAYERS Championship. LEE WESTWOOD: Really. DOUG MILNE: A number of top 10 finishes, including a Twill last year if I recall correctly. Obviously you like the place, so just a few comments on your round today. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I played solidly. After Quail Hollow last week, just lost the feeling in my swing a bit that I've been working on, but got Mike on the range at Old Palm on Monday, and it came back within a half an hour. He's given me a few drills to work on that's going to gradually engrain that, and I find it quite easy to take onto the golf course. Q. How important was it on the early session, the course is only going to get harder and faster, to take advantage of it when it's in the condition it's in right now? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, very important. You know, I was a little bit surprised when I saw the draw and I was first out, but at the same point delighted. It's probably been 21 years since I've been the first ball in the air at any tournament. (Laughter.) But it was great. The play was fast, the golf course was perfect, the breeze, there was none, and it was really nice to be out there this morning. If they want to keep giving me first off, I'm happy with that. It was important to come out fast, and I hit it to about a foot and a half on the 1st hole and then I had a tap‑in at the 2nd for birdie, so I was 2‑under after 2 and got some momentum. Q. One top 10 so far this year, the Masters, obviously. What has been‑‑ has it been one thing, a number of things as far as what the struggle has been to score better? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, I haven't played very well until recently, and then since Houston, since starting working with Mike, played a lot better in Houston, and then the Masters. And then won in Malaysia, started to build up some confidence and some momentum, start feeling positions in my golf swing that I haven't felt for some time. And the nice thing about it is it's stuff that I worked on years ago with Pete, so it's not completely alien to me, so take it out on the golf course. My short game has been sharp because my long game has been crap, and my short game has continued to be sharp, so I'm now rolling a few putts in when I give myself chances. Q. Can you be more specific about what you have been working on? LEE WESTWOOD: That was a long‑winded answer. I didn't know if you wanted me to be more specific than that. The easiest way to say it is when I'm playing poorly, my arm gets across my chest too far and the club gets too far behind me, so I'm working on setting it better with a shorter arm swing but still a full turn. Q. Did last week sort of confirm to you that you're not there yet? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, you know, I've been doing this for a long time now, and I expect it to come in straightaway and then stay straightaway. Some days you feel like you can't hit a bad shot. Other days you feel like you don't know which of end of the club to hold. That's what it's like when you're making swing changes. Sometimes it feels in the slot and sometimes it doesn't. When you're making changes sometimes it affects your rhythm and your timing a lot, and once your rhythm and your timing goes out, then it feels awful. But the main point is to keep going back to the basics that I'm working on and the swing changes and do a few drills, and it comes back pretty quickly. It was just it's very difficult once you lose it on the golf course like I did, sort of halfway through the second round at Quail Hollow, although the first 27 holes I didn't play great, I found it really hard to get it back in the slot, and that's why I hit one fairway and one green around the back nine, which is not like me at all. But the nice thing is, going out on the range on Monday with Mike gave me a couple of different exercises that we hadn't worked on before and achieved the same thing, so I'm gradually building up a catalog of drills to get me to an end point, really. Q. Can you take us through the first hole, as well? LEE WESTWOOD: The first today? Q. Yeah, because you stuck it. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, driver straight down the middle, and then I had 119 yards, I think‑‑ yeah, 119 yards, and I hit it 117 and a half, bang on‑‑ yeah, probably about that, to about that far. It was a nice way to start the day, nice easy tap‑in and then a couple of good shots at the next and a nice chip stone dead. Q. You've had kind of a love‑hate relationship with this course over the years‑‑ LEE WESTWOOD: No, never hate. Q. Never hate? LEE WESTWOOD: Never. Q. You've played very well on occasion. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, first time I came here was late '90s and loved it then, and then they moved it to May, and still like it, although it plays very differently. Still get on with it well. Q. Are there certain holes that you have to think a little bit more on than others or certain ones that pose particular challenges? LEE WESTWOOD: No, this is a nice golf course in the fact that you've got to get your mind in gear on the first tee and not switch it off until you walk off the 18th green. There isn't a hole out there that's one that you can play brain‑dead. You've got to focus and it gets your full attention from the word go. Q. I believe you made the move to south Florida late last year, or early last year‑‑ LEE WESTWOOD: No, the year before. Q. When you made the commitment to come over here and focus a little bit more in the United States, did it surprise you you didn't play as well as you thought you would have? LEE WESTWOOD: No not really. It's a big change. I didn't really feel it from a golf aspect, either. The whole family fancied a change, really. Fancied living in the sun. (Laughter.) So it didn't surprise me, no. I'm experienced enough now to have patience and wait it out. I know what golf is like. I've played with Brendon DeJonge and he shot 80 the first round last week and then a 62, his best result of the year so far after an 80 first round, so you can imagine the conversations that we were having about golf going down the 5th or 6th hole today. Q. Given the slump, what did Malaysia do for your psyche? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, I mean, there's nothing like winning a tournament to give you confidence, more mentally than anything, that when you get into a position to win, you can finish it off. I've won 41 times, so I'm obviously good at winning when I get a chance. But it's always nice to reaffirm that whenever possible, and I did everything right in Malaysia, really. When people came at me, I just sort of stretched away and didn't press the panic button at any stage, when I bogeyed the last of the third round and they got within one, and then the last day I played like a winner of 40 tournaments should play: Played with patience and picked shots up when I could. I wasn't too bothered about coming out like lightning, but I was picking shots up when I could and putting pressure on the people chasing so they had to go for shots and make mistakes, really, force them into making mistakes. Q. Of the couple times you skipped here, was it scheduling basically? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah. Q. Was there any of this golf course doesn't fit my taste? LEE WESTWOOD: No, I've always liked it. It was just purely a scheduling thing. Q. Given how accustomed you are to playing in front of crowds, what was it like at 6:00 a.m. this morning and how many people were actually watching? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, if they would have shouted out their names, I'd have known them all by name. (Laughter.) There were a good eight there, I think. It was nice and quiet. There were no shadows creeping over the tee as the sun came up, no phones going off and no rattling of change in pockets. It was nice out there. Q. I was going to ask a similar sort of question. Although it worked out fine, when you saw the draw, did any part of you think, hang on a second, I'm a bit senior to be going out‑‑ LEE WESTWOOD: No, I don't have a problem with that. Actually I had a little chuckle and thought, this is great. This is like having a handicap again, getting a shot. Being first out is brilliant; it's a great tee time. I love it. It's better than being last out. Pace of play is nice, no spike marks. Good playing, nice playing partners to play with. Yeah, it was a nice morning to be playing golf. Q. What time did the alarm go off? LEE WESTWOOD: About 4:50. I actually got up about 4:00 for the call of nature and went back to bed and cracked my knee on the bed. I've been struggling with that all day, limping around. Q. You talked about the first hole. Was that the hole of the day, the first? LEE WESTWOOD: No, I played solidly all day. I hit 3‑wood, U‑wedge to about five feet on 6; gave myself chances all the way around the rest of the golf course; 3‑wood, sand iron on 12 to 10 feet; hit some really nice shots coming down the last few holes; a lovely shot into 16; nice 8‑iron into 17 that went 190 yards nearly, so that's when I feel like I'm starting to get it in the slot more when I can stretch it out a bit further. Yeah, it was good. I hit a lot of good putts. All positive today. Q. The effects of the swing restoration, it seemed to happen pretty quickly considering you and Mike just started in late February at the Match Play. In your head was it quick? Was it what you expected in I know at the Match Play you weren't quite sure how long it would take? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, it was quite quick. I'm probably still going to have weeks where I don't feel right, but Mike being a disciple of Pete's, shall we say, we call Pete Darth Vader, so we should really call Mike, his last name is Walker, we should really call him Mike Luke Skywalker, shouldn't we? I'm writing your lines for you now. It was always going to be‑‑ I'm not going to say easy, but it was always going to feel comfortable for me because Mike has learnt from Pete, so he's going to teach me things that I've done in the past. Q. How much if at all is securing a Ryder Cup spot in your mind this early? LEE WESTWOOD: Not really in my mind. I'm edging my way in there, I'm getting on the edge. I'm just waiting for a few good results to come. There's a long way to go still in that, a lot of big tournaments. There's three majors and a World Golf Championship and the PGA at Wentworth and World Ranking points to play for, Scottish Open. It's not something that I've always‑‑ I've ever set as a goal because it comes from playing well. You can't sort of‑‑ yeah, it's nice to be in the Ryder Cup side, but you don't go out and stand on the first tee this morning thinking I've got to play well because I want to get on the Ryder Cup side. You just want to shoot a good round and get into this tournament, and if you finish the tournament off well, you get some Ryder Cup points. It just builds up as a part of that process. DOUG MILNE: Lee, congratulations, off to a great start. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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